review mysqldump options

the mysqldump default options have changed over time, its about time to review these options. for example is it a good idea to lock the tables during dump? when the tables are locked, then the application usually is blocked. another option that might make a lot of sense is to have skip-extended-insert, because by default extended-inserts are enabled in mysqldump, and they make SQLdumps very difficult to edit with an editor, what purpose do these extended inserts serve? I'm not sure, need to research that.